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PS3 Gets DivX Support, Coming Soon to Xbox 360

Posted by Zonk on Tue Nov 13, 2007 10:43 AM
XBox (Games) PlayStation (Games)
Mpegged writes "The popular DivX video codec will soon be supported on the PlayStation 3 via a future firmware update. DivX CEO Kevin Hell also hinted that support is coming to the 360 as well. 'During the SMid Cap conference call with investment firm JP Morgan, Hell was asked if the recent deal that will see DivX codecs shipped with new versions of Microsoft's standalone Media Center Extenders means that such support will also be arriving on the Xbox 360. "Yes!" was his immediate reply, although he quickly qualified that confirmation with a disclaimer that the deal was still in the negotiation process and had not yet been finalized.'"
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Submission: PS3 gets DivX support, coming soon to Xbox 360 by Anonymous Coward
[+] Xbox Live Fall Update Drops Tomorrow 78 comments
Game|Life has a rundown on the Fall Update for Xbox Live. In addition to the Friend of a Friend feature we discussed last week, you'll also be seeing the first of the Xbox Originals download titles, a few Arcade games will be a bit lower cost, and a new 'family timer' option will let parents put caps on service use time. "You'll also be able to expand your bio, providing more detailed information about yourself to the Xbox Live community ... apparently I wasn't the only one going blind trying to watch those itty-bitty move previews, because now you'll be able to see them full-screen. The update also comes with "enhanced video codec support," which means that your DivX and Xvid files will play on your 360." Remember, if you don't want everyone seeing the folks on your Friends List you need to change your settings now. Plus, everybody should snag Psychonauts; make Tim Schafer a happy man for Christmas.
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  • DivX... do people still use that? (Score:3, Informative)

    by PhrostyMcByte (589271) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Tuesday November 13 2007, @10:49AM (#21336597) Homepage
    Everyone I know uses an XviD or h.264 codec these days. I haven't seen a new DivX video for a couple years.
    • The article indicates support for XviD, or at the very least being able to detect XviD files in the PS3 2.0 firmware.
    • I have a few older movies from my library in DivX, though most now are XviD. I definitely do not want to go through all 100+ of them and transcode to H.264 though. Besides, most DVD players play DivX and XviD just fine, so why move to 264?

    • Re:DivX... do people still use that? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Wordsmith (183749) on Tuesday November 13 2007, @11:04AM (#21336867) Homepage
      Divx support means the ability to decode those Xvid files (at least in theory). Mpeg-4 Part II, of which both codecs are implementations, is set up so that implementations can vary in their encodes (like, say, two different MP3 encoders would do), decoding should work identically.
      • No. The two encoders have some mutually incompatible features. Some xvid encodes will work with the divx decoder, while the ones that actually use xvid's good features (like multiple b-frames) simply won't. (unless divx has changed radically in the last year or so)

        • Re:DivX... do people still use that? (Score:4, Informative)

          by Shrubbman (3807) on Tuesday November 13 2007, @12:13PM (#21337985)
          That's simply an issue with Divx's decoder not fully supporting the spec, similar to how certain h.264 encoded videos with some of the more advanced features enabled can't be played back on the ipod. The only reason not to support the full spec in software would be hardware limitations, which shouldn't be an issue for either the PS3 or 360.
          • That's not the only reason. According to TFA, this is being done by the divx team: what incentive do they have for providing support for features their codec does not use? Features that, as a matter of fact, puts show product in a bad light. I guess we'll see when the thing is released, but I'm not holding my breath. Well, I don't even own a PS3 so why should I...

  • Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Silverlancer (786390) on Tuesday November 13 2007, @10:56AM (#21336713)
    Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 already support H.264; why in the world would anyone use DivX when a better option is available?

    • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Funny)

      by king-manic (409855) on Tuesday November 13 2007, @10:58AM (#21336739)

      Both the PS3 and Xbox 360 already support H.264; why in the world would anyone use DivX when a better option is available?
      \

      Because they're too lazy to convert 500 gigs of porn.
      • It's funny, but you make a good point. Pornography has definitely played a part in the history of media format wars and is credited in part for the win of VHS over Beta. Sony wouldn't allow porn on betamax. More recently, Sony initially refused to allow porn on the Blu-ray format, but I think they have quietly relented on that. So it is not too far fetched to say that DivX support may have something to do with porn. At the very least, the legacy DivX libraries other posters have mentioned may play some role

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by king-manic (409855)

          It's funny, but you make a good point. Pornography has definitely played a part in the history of media format wars and is credited in part for the win of VHS over Beta. Sony wouldn't allow porn on betamax. More recently, Sony initially refused to allow porn on the Blu-ray format, but I think they have quietly relented on that. So it is not too far fetched to say that DivX support may have something to do with porn. At the very least, the legacy DivX libraries other posters have mentioned may play some role in the decision of support. But, of course, a lot of those libraries probably contain a fair amount of, *ahem*, adult material. It certainly won't hurt PS3 sales!

          In the end though, my guess is that adding DivX support is not a huge technological problem, and given the fierce battle Sony and Microsoft are engaged in, each wants as many bullet points as possible. In the end, competition is good for the consumer!

          Actually both your stories are myths. Beta did in fact have porn on it in every time span VHS did. The myth that it didn't may have been common and motivated people to buy VHS but Beta did indeed have porn. The myth itself is what likely had influence.

          HD DVD vs Blu-ray is even less influence due to the wide scale spread of porn on the internet but also because it's untrue. The CEO of Digital Playgrounds (a Porn studio) complained Sony wasn't giving him enough support and claimed Sony didn't want porn on bl

            • Enjoying your SONY paychek, you corporate shill?

              -AC

              Actually these people [legalresourcecentre.ca] provide my paycheck. I just happen to be a pedant, who dislikes mis information. Can you refute there was porn on beta? Can you refute there is porn on blu-ray? how about the sales figures? People holding contrary opinions aren't always shills.

              a excerpt from an article:

              Aside from the occasionally repeated myth that only Sony made Beta machines (easily refuted by a visit to BetaInfoGuide), the other often-repeated assertion is that a major factor in Beta's demise was that the adult movie industry didn't get behind it. It's an odd statement because there doesn't appear to be a shred of evidence to support it. Pick the name of any of the 1980's major porn video distributors (IMDB is good for this), google the name along with the word "Betamax," and you'll turn up all kinds of references to releases in Beta and VHS.

              PC world [pcworld.com]

              Blu ray porno. [gizmodo.com]

        • > Sony wouldn't allow porn on betamax.

          [[citation needed]]

          > More recently, Sony initially refused to allow porn on the Blu-ray format

          Urban legend. They won't press porn discs in their facilities. Neither will Disney. There's already plenty of blu-ray porn out there (me, I think a certain level of definition is just too much).
          • "They won't press porn discs in their facilities. Neither will Disney. There's already plenty of blu-ray porn out there (me, I think a certain level of definition is just too much)."

            Rofl

            Maybe that is why someone is building* a blu-ray factory here. The volume estimates seemed kinda low to me but this could explain a lot ;)

            *building really meaning remodeling an old hotel and putting a press on one floor until they get enough juice hooked up for more.
          • I did a little more digging and came up with this

            http://www.informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=197004081 [informationweek.com]

            which would imply that while Sony didn't seem to want porn on Beta, they did not actually forbid it. Indeed their blunder was that Beta was initially designed for a 1 hour format, which is fine for TV shows, but people were recording and watching a lot of movies, many pornographic. Sony was slow to come out with a longer format, so VHS won the day. They just guessed wrong on how people were g
    • They use them because most people don't want to re-rip and re-encode their library of movies AGAIN. They'll probably use the new codec for new things, but for everything already done, they're not going to spend the time to re-do them for questionable benefit (the source material is only up to a certain quality anyways).
    • I think you are right for new content. There is no earthly reason whatsoever for encoding content to ASP if your devices support H264 (AVC). The quality of AVC is better, the compression is better and AVC is the chosen format for portable devices going forward.

      ASP is still good for existing legacy content though. Transcoding ASP to AVC yields pretty awful quality vids so anything that allows you to watch them without conversion is a good thing.

      The PS3 is already an awesome multimedia device and it just

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      h264 comes in many flavors. The PS3 cannot (won't) play anything above level 4.1, although there are rumors of 4.2. Either way, it's not good enough seeing just about every "x264" recording is set to 5.1, which should really be used for ultra-mega-wega HD.

      The other issue is the container. The PS3 will not play mkv, and mp4 doesn't like ac3 5.1 sound. Currently you can split the streams apart, try to fudge the video level down to 4.1 and remux to vob format, with an extension the PS3 will accept, say .mpg. H

      • What we really need is VLC to be on the PS3


        The PS3 can run Linux, so it already has VLC builds available.

        • Except that Linux support on the PS3 is lousy and useless. Just like it was on the PS2 -- that was so bad that everyone forgot it existed and got excited all over again about Linux on the PS3.

          I suppose this cycle will start all over again with the PS4.
      • A better extension when playing the hit-or-miss game is .m2ts. But you are right, the fact that most of the .mkv files I find are H.264 5.1 is a pain.

        I just saw a post on another forum saying that .m2ts files played from the XMB will now output 5.1 audio with the 2.00 firmware upgrade. I'll have to check that this evening.

      • What we really need is VLC to be on the PS3, and cut out all the crap. xbox360 owners seem to have their own limited support issues, but they're having great success with HD WMV, which sony won't touch.

        Too late. A variation of WMV-HD (WMV9) is already in every Blu-Ray player out there as part of the spec. You may know it by its alternative name, VC1. (Blu-Ray and HD-DVD all support the same codecs - MPEG2, H.264 (aka AVC), and VC-1.).

        Of course, most recent Blu-Ray releases use AVC while a number of HD-DVDs

      • What we really need is VLC to be on the PS3

        never mind VLC, what we need is something equivalent to XBMC on the ps3. hell, if sony made something that good as a PSN download, I'd pay for it.

        come on sony, do what your customers want for a change!

        dave

    • Because the consumer electronics industry seems to be settling on DivX-on-DVD as the poor-man's HD format. If you walk into any electronics store, you'll find around half the DVD players are "DivX certified".

      In that context, it's as silly to talk about refusing to support it in the face of superior codecs as it is to talk about MPEG2 in the same way.

      • The MPEG-2 Transport Stream can contain H.264 video with AAC, AC3, or DTS audio. It is actually the format used by Blu-ray Discs. The BD file and folder structure can by placed on a DVD which is referred to an AVCHD. The PS3 needs the filesystem to be UDF 2.50 or higher though.
  • I've read a few dozen times people chiming in saying the PS3 isn't a good media center because it didn't support DivX, I suppose this is a move to address that.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by DrXym (126579)
      DivX certainly represents the last significant piece in the puzzle. The PS3 already supports MPEG-2, MP4 pt 2 SP, AVC, jpeg, png, MP3, WMA, AAC, ATRAC and has streaming support via UPnP and DNLA. Next year it's getting PVR functionality in some regions and possibly downloadable content from PSN.

      I think it's shaping up to be the ultimate multimedia center. The 360 is also making efforts to improve it's multimedia support, but you'd probably have to get the 120Gb to make any decent use of it.

  • All I can say is... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CaseM (746707) on Tuesday November 13 2007, @11:07AM (#21336905)
    it's about f*****' time!

    I hate transcoding with a passion - the best media centers out there (TVersity, Orb) still seem somewhat buggy and just stop working sometimes. They're great, but if I have to remote admin to my media server to stop and restart the service to watch a TV show, then I'm less inclined to want to bother with it. At their best, transcoders (for obvious reasons) lower the quality of the video to get it over to your console/system of choice.

  • Why the moaning? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by coldgunner (890254) on Tuesday November 13 2007, @11:08AM (#21336927)
    Can't understand the complaints as to why we didn't get xvid etc, I mean, they didn't have to add divx and its better than having none at all
  • My XBMC plays all of the above and more. It's a staple in my living room and even passes the wife acceptance factor. Everything is served from a Debian server using the XBMC streaming protocol.

    I can't wait until the linux port is complete and I can start doing HD stuff.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DJProtoss (589443)
      True, although the linux port is probably a ways off yet [ especially what I really would like, which would be a linux port running on the PS3. Yes, I'm somewhat sick like that ] Big problem with XMBC is ( as alluded to above ) it can't cope with HD, and (worse) it can only cope with h264 to a somewhat limited extent.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by AbRASiON (589899) *
      I can't believe there's not more posts about this, XBMC is probably the best media server option for low definition there is.
      Simple and easy to use, looks good, works well, is now reliable and packed full of features.

  • In light of this and given that I'm not prepared to cough up money for a PS3 or an XBox360, does anyone have any recommendations for a DVD player which will play DivX and XviD?

    Most important requirement is the handling of multiple films on one DVD. Apart from that, I'm keen to go with a recognised brand name rather than an obscure Chinese one.

    The Philips DVP642 was an oft recommended one but has now been discontinued. Recently I've been hearing good things about the Pioneer DV-696AV-K.

    Any thoughts?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by someguy456 (607900)
      I love my Philips DVP 5960.

      The killer feature for me was the front-side USB port, which lets me play movies right off of a flash drive.
      Throw in easy region-free hacks + HDMI/1080i support and I've got myself a winner for around $75
  • They removed the PS2 BC codec and added divx ? Is the PS3 a game console ?
    • Yes, the PS3 is a games consoles. And a kickass multimedia system. Why do you believe the two to be mutually exclusive propositions?

      As for BC, buy the 60Gb while you can and quit complaining.

    • No, you don't understand, or at least you haven't read enough Slashdot - the Wii is about having *fun*. High-end technical specifications or a library of worthwhile games isn't necessary! It's all about the *fun*!

      Have I ever mentioned about the excellent parties I have, where I break out Wii Sports Bowling? Or my wife, who I regularly conjoin into playing Wii Sports Tennis with me? Or all the old people I'm aware of who picked up a Wii of their own, after waiting in line at Gamestop? It's all about th

      • You clearly don't understand. Every console should also be an internet browser and a media center. What are you thinking, that there's some other magical device that could be used to browse the internet and play movies? Snap out of it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by MBGMorden (803437)
        Unless you were being sarcastic, I think it was pretty obvious that the GP isn't having fun with the Wii. Just because some others tell you that this new magic console is *fun* doesn't make it so. Fun is subjective.

        I don't own a Wii, but my brother does. It was indeed fun, for an hour or so. I have no real further inclination to mess with one again though, and after the novelty factor wore off he doesn't play it anymore either (he's back to playing his PS2 again).

        Different strokes for different folks.
        • My brother too owns a Wii. Since he's recently taken up residence in my basement, it means I don't have to buy one. I play the thing all the time though. Mostly for Mario Strikers: Charged and MP3 Corruption. And when Smash Bros Brawl comes out... oh.. it's going to be great.

          That said, the Wii is going to be off for about a month whilst I play through Assassin's Creed and Mass Effect. I just love games. So if it's fun, I want to play. If it's not fun, I don't want to play. But, that's what games are

      • The few fun games I've tried on the Wii was hampered by the compulsory us of the wiimote, making them... unfun.
        On the other hand, the few games I've tried on PC, PS3, Xbox or Xbox360 lately have been hampered by the games being to much centered on "Oooh! Cool graphics!" rather than gameplay.

        Wii minus the wiimote would be a nice thing though.
        I have a cluttered apartment. Some Wii-games are almost impossible to play there.
        Too few games let you choose for yourself, forcing you to use the wiimote even if you ju
    • Those are all pretty boring games you have honestly. Pickup Resident Evil 4 and Metroid. As for Super Mario Galaxy, well if you're not anxious to play the game starring Nintendo's main mascot in what is so far critically and most probably soon commerically his best game in years, then what exactly did you buy a Wii for in the first place?
    • The only reason I yawned while playing Mario Galaxy was because I lost track of time and stayed up an extra two hours playing it. It really is digital crack.
    • I guess the worst happened as the Wii isn't really good for anything, not games nor media center... none of the 7 games I own really make me play it any more (Zelda, Red Steel, Paper Mario, MonkeyBall, WiiSports, WiiPlay, Excite Truck)... and the prospects are not really nice (Mario galaxy??? yaawn).

      Why bother owning a device that isn't really good for anything?

      You should sell your Wii to me. I'll give you $200 for it... $300 if you include the games.
    • Well, Mario Galaxy has received really excellent mark from many in the gaming community. It is definitely a must own title. On another point though, what games really have so much staying power that you will play it after you've beat it? Unless you play with friends, or online, there's very little reason to re-play a game. That's why they keep coming out with new games, so you have something to keep you playing.

      Just sell your games on Ebay, or GameStop if you're lazy, and buy some new games.
    • The PS3 is a bit quieter than the 360. If you don't hit the cpu / keep it somewhere cool it will spin the fans right down (which is nice), but neither of the boxes are really as quiet as you might want.

    • I have a DivX Player... It's called a computer...
      But how large is its monitor? I'm pretty sure that most people with a PC don't know how to connect it to a TV, especially an analog TV, and many of those who do know how are not willing to buy another PC for the TV room.

    • Re:DivX Players? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DrXym (126579) on Tuesday November 13 2007, @12:23PM (#21338149)
      I have a DivX Player... It's called a computer...

      Good for you. Next you're going to say that your computer is hooked up to your TV and everyone else should do the same?

      Fact is the PS3 and the 360 are plugged into a TV by definition and have more than enough power to play music and video. In that capacity it makes perfect sense to utilise them as multimedia jukeboxes.

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